This started as the “creepy old convention center” thread. However…
My characters informed me that… um, I mean that I decided that an old house makes much more sense than anything that would have been used as a convention center. I’m talking to the head of the architecture dept. at PSU this week. 
But I really still want opinions from the incredibly smart people here. 
Also, I think that’ll help me to pin down the kinds of questions I want to ask the PSU dept. head.
What I need to know is the feasibility of a number of fictional constructs. This house is French Renaissance style (like a much smaller Pittock Mansion and is right next to the downtown Portland library (here’s a pic of the exterior. It’s been falling into decrepitude for years, but funding for its basic upkeep has been coming from a mysterious source. Now it’s about to be torn down. The historical preservation commission is furious, but they can’t do anything about it; the house is privately owned. And yes, the story is that it’s haunted.
Sophia (main character) found out about an opportunity to be paid for photography of the house before the demolition. She applied but was turned down. Her cousin Caleb graduated from the PSU architecture program and is now an intern for the preservation commission; together, they try to figure out the mystery of the house and its sinister inhabitant. (Then, the NC-17 content begins. But that’s another thing…)
So are there some aspects of this setup that seem more/less believable than others? What might be some good questions to ask the head of the dept? And pretty much anything else that people want to share!